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Love and Advice
Love and Advice (often abbreviated as L&A) is a serial thread dedicated to providing a place for posters to receive advice on a wide array of topics. Originally operated solely by Circuit Mane, the thread has received input from dozens of contributers and assisted many more throughout the years of its existence. While practically unused on Ponychan , the thread manages a rather slow existence on MLPchan. History Beginning sometime in 2011, Love and Advice was a late-night thread in which lone poster Circuit Mane would provide advice to those who asked. It attracted a fair amount of attention, and a new thread was posted almost every night. Due to the reoccuring nature of the thread, it became one of the first serials. The thread offered some entertainment value, as Circuit would sometimes roleplay as a character from MLP. Sometime after the initial thread, advice was being given by posters other than Circuit. He approved of this entirely, and the thread began its first steps to creating its own subcommunity. The thread continued, having a constantly rotating group of advice-givers. As it operated on an almost 24-hour schedule, there were concerns that the lack of activity during later hours would dissuade some posters from asking for advice. To quell these fears, some of the more active posters began treating the thread like any other, providing activity but still providing advice when needed. This attitude was well managed at first, but was part of a later controversy. Even with fewer members and less traffic, the thread pushed on. Sometime after the creation of MLPchan, a sister thread was made on the site. A majority of the traffic also moved with the thread, leaving the Ponychan thread almost completely empty. Love and Advice still persists of MLPchan, having a few posters still available to grant advice to the rare wayward poster that seeks it. Controversy At its peak, Love and Advice had almost devolved into a regular serial, where the focus was simple socialization and minimal advice giving. Some even viewed the thread as being harmful to the community. During this time, most L&A threads saw visits by mysterious posters that tried their best to improve the quality of the thread. While these discussions provided some headway, the real fix came when traffic to the thread diminished almost entirely. The thread was reborn by a few dedicated posters that managed to regain approval of the thread and return it to its former glory of providing advice. Today, it manages a stable balance between socialization and advice-giving. Format As it attempted to have a more serious environment, Love and Advice has always tried to separate itself from the other serials. The most important factor of this is that new posters are always welcome, so as to not make the thread like it is a clique. Thread editions, common on many serials, are frowned upon for L&A. One of the classic traits for the original posts of L&A is to include some sort of inspirational or meaningful quote, referred to as the zen for the thread.